Perfect Stranger

Rated R, 109 minutes, $28.95

Halle Berry plays an investigative reporter who has perfected the art of exposing other people's secrets. But a Rocky review calls Perfect Stranger "a sleek but depthless thriller" that "soon begins to look like another setback for Berry." But if you must know: When a childhood friend turns up murdered, Rowena is determined to find the truth.

The Lives of Others

Rated R, 109 minutes, $26.96

Sony Pictures

Grade: A-

The winner of this year's best foreign-language Oscar is a political thriller and human drama, beginning in East Berlin in 1984 and taking us to 1991. Reviewers have called the film "morally complex and beautifully shaded."